Losing Faith
by Selene47
Summary: Featuring my OC Faith Adler...Sort of given up on this since my love for Lost collapsed, around the end of season 2.
1. Chapter 1

_Day one:_

She had woken up underwater, with blood from a cut on her head staining the sea around her, so dizzy she didn't know how she had got there or which way was up. She kicked out, felt her feet hit something and pushed against it to launch herself towards the light. She didn't know how long she'd been under, but her lungs strained as she kicked and waved her arms, wishing she had thought to take more swimming lessons, but seeing the patch of light through the shimmering blue above her growing bigger, nearer.

Her head broke the surface, water clinging to her and pouring off her at the same time, as she took sweet gulps of oxygen and prayed that she was still alive. Faith shook wet hair out of her eyes, sound crashing down around her, the opposite to the tranquil silence under the water. As she struggled towards the shore, blinking salty water from her eyes, she was aware of people running to and fro in front of her, screaming loved ones names.

Someone saw her in the sea and splashed out to meet her a few yards from the beach, but her vision was so blurred she couldn't make out what he looked like. He was speaking to her with an American accent, asking her questions which Faith's groggy mind could barely comprehend, and only answer with nods and shakes of her head. Was she OK? How many fingers was he holding up? Was she travelling alone, where was her family? The last question hit home as she remembered what had happened…

_Turbulence shook the plane, people thrown across the aisle, cold fear freezing her hand on its way to her seatbelt. Somehow there had been a mix-up with the tickets; one seat was five rows behind the other three, and her father had volunteered to sit on his own during the long flight, so that her mother could sit with Faith and her younger sister._

_She didn't see the back half of the plane rip off in mid-air, just felt cold air snatch at her as she tried to turn her head, stinging her eyes. The row behind her was barely there, the passengers clinging to each other and the seats in front as they were sucked out backwards. The rows after that were gone._

_She hadn't comprehended the meaning of this before the front half of the plane jerked, the nose twisting upwards, and she saw the ground looming towards them through the gaping hole where the back of the plane had been. Faith had let go of the useless seatbelt to grab onto the seat in front, but her hands were snatched away by the wind. She screamed, but her mother was sitting very still two seats away side, blood streaming from under her hair where a case had fallen from the overhead. Her sister screamed; eyes squeezed tight shut, arms wrapped tightly around the motionless form beside her, not seeing Faith struggling on the other side of her. Her last thought before she was grappled into thin air was annoyance; they had never noticed her before this, it was just typical-_

_Her head had clipped against something as she was flung out of the back of the plane, knocking her out cold an instant before the freezing water pummelled into her. She had been taking a breath to scream, and when she came round a few seconds later it was this precious scrap of oxygen that enabled her to get to the surface._

Faith came back to her senses, as the man holding her asked the questions again, sitting her down on sand, gently opening her eyes to shine a flashlight in them. She tried to speak, shaking her head, but the sound of screams jolted the man to his feet. Faith followed his gaze to see a girl in her early twenties, on her hands and knees, clearly extremely pregnant and in some pain.

'Don't move!' The man shouted, stumbling towards the blonde girl, his designer suit torn and soaking, missing his tie, blood running from a cut on his handsome face and from a cut just below his close-cropped hair. She nodded, unable to move if she had wanted to, watching him talking earnestly to the girl, before noticing the fuselage of the plane, missing the nose and back half, embedded on its side in the sand fifty yards away, the wing still attached, straining under its own weight.

Filled with a new resolve, Faith heaved herself to her feet, forcing herself over to the back of the front section, clamping a hand over her nose and mouth at the stench that hit her, gagging on the cheap flight meal she had been served. She forced it down and took another step into the darkness, wishing she'd brought a torch. She remembered where she had been sitting; the middle section, near the right, and made her way trough the twisted wreckage of seats at the back to her own seat number, almost not daring to look next to her own dark blue plane seat.

But she willed her head to turn, letting her hand drop from her face as she saw her mother and sister, coughing violently as the reek from the dead blasted into her again. She stumbled backwards, falling to the sand a few steps away from the fuselage, tears streaming down her face as sobs racked through her. Faith turned onto her side, scratching her face into the sand, trying to force the image of their broken bodies from her mind, but no matter how hard she shut her eyes, the image was stamped against her mind.

Suddenly a crash shook the ground near her, and something heavy plummeted to the ground behind her. She hastily scrambled away, turning to see the plane, still shuddering, but now missing the wing, which had hit the ground barely ten feet away. She sighed, flopping back down into the sand, not caring about how close to death she had come. As far as she was concerned, she may as well be already dead.

Half an hour of sobbing later, Faith pulled herself together and sat up, rubbing a hand over her tear-stained face, taking deep breaths to ward off the overwhelming hopelessness that threatened to consume her. It took her a few minutes to realise that she was being watched, quickly turning her head to meet the gaze of a bald man in his fifties, sitting motionless in the sand a few yards away. He was staring at her; one of his pale eyes seemingly cut in half by a thin, bloody scar from his forehead to his cheek. Faith felt strangely intrigued by the serious, calm expression on his face.

'What's up?' He asked, speaking with an American accent, the trace of a smile in his voice, though none showed on his face.

Faith slowly got to her feet, warily eyeing the strange man, whose gaze never faltered as he steadily examined her torn jeans and face wet with tears.

'You being serious?' Her voice came out in a croak; she could taste metallic blood and sand on her tongue, and was dying for a drink of water.

He didn't move, didn't smile, but there was the same undertone of humour in his voice as he spoke again, glancing round at their surroundings. 'Things could be worse.'

'How?' Her voice cracked as she said it, remembering her mother's glassy, staring eyes and twisted limbs. 'What could be worse than this?' Faith waved half-heartedly at their surroundings, almost hitting another survivor, a young man in a striped shirt who hurried past without noticing her, his mind on other things.

'We're alive.' The bald man suggested after a minute, sounding surprised he even had to say it. 'We've got dry land, enough food and water to last until we get rescued.'

Faith nodded wearily, sitting down beside him on a scrap of the plane wreckage, which creaked under her added weight.

'So what's your name?' He asked after a moment of her gloomy silence, smiling kindly at her.

'My name? Oh…Faith.'

'That's a good name.' He commented. 'We all need a little faith.'

She nodded again, not really listening, still seeing the bodies from the fuselage. Around her, the survivors were starting to calm down, building fires and stringing up temporary shelters to last until morning; they surely couldn't be here for much longer than a few hours. They would soon be found.

Wouldn't they?


	2. Chapter 2

_Day four:_

Faith knotted a length of rope around the pole they had salvaged from the wreckage, nodding at the boy who was helping her build a shelter, who quickly tied his end off as well, suspending the blue tarpaulin above them. More sheets were strung up like washing lines for three of the walls, weighted down with sand and rocks so they didn't flap about.

The other survivors had also begun to build similar shelters, and so Faith and a few other teenagers had built this one, big enough to fit five or six medium sized people in. The others had gone to help their own families or friends build crude shelters of their own, leaving Faith and this boy, who had told her his name was Stefan. He was just seventeen, slightly older than her, with pale skin, curly brown hair, and green eyes that twinkled when he laughed. Faith herself was slightly dark-skinned, with long black hair and dark brown eyes.

Stefan pronounced his name with a foreign tilt; he said he was German, on a trip round the world with his father. He had been sitting nearer the front of the plane, and had been thrown clear when they crashed, landing in the jungle. He had been badly cut and bruised, with a deep gash along one arm and another on his back, but the doctor, Jack, had fixed him up, bandaging his wounds and giving him antibiotics recovered from random bags, and he had insisted he was able to help her.

She had let him, simply because he hadn't been able to find his father among the forty or so stranded on the beach, and she felt sorry for him, in case - like her mother and sister - his father was among those rotting in the fuselage.

'I'm done.' He said, finishing winding the thick rope around a scrap of plane, embedded upright in the sand.

'Great!' Faith said, studying their work, pleased at how much they had accomplished. She wasn't that good at building and construction, but Stefan had a part-time job at a building site in the town where he and his father had lived in Germany. He knew enough about it to balance the shelter, giving them, and a few others who had nowhere else to stay, a place to sleep.

Faith stepped out of the shelter, shading her eyes as the sun rose slowly towards the middle of the sky in front of her. Despite everything, she couldn't deny that it was beautiful on the beach, with the soft sand and blue sea. And she was determined to make the most of their short time here, until they were rescued.

She moved to stand in the sea, fifty yards from the entrance to the shelter. Her trainers had been discarded the day before, and she had cut her jeans below the knee to make them easier to move in. Her suitcase was still missing, but Stefan had found his, and lent her one of his shirts, which was so big she had hacked the sleeves off (with his permission) and cut the bottom off to make it fit. It had quickly become her favourite shirt. She looked altogether at home on the Island, with her bare feet and arms, her black hair unbrushed and curling around her quickly tanning skin.

Stefan looked just as happy, wearing a pair of battered jeans and a scruffy T-shirt with his sandals, his hair tangling into his blue eyes. He joined her in the spray, and she was about to speak before shouts and thumps rang out from further along the beach.

'What's that?' She wondered aloud, and Stefan quickly followed as she hurried up the beach. They came across a group of other survivors, a few of them familiar as the kids that helped build the shelter, but most of them unknown. The two of them quietly slipped through the crowd, everybody else too intent on whatever was going on to notice them.

They shoved through to the front, among cries of 'What? All the food's gone?' Faith felt worry clench her stomach, but Jack waved his arms, trying to settle the panicking crowd, shouting over the yells. A few of the others were also trying to calm the survivors.

'There is plenty we can use on this island for sustenance!' Shouted the Iraqi, who's name, she had learned, was Sayid.

'And how exactly do we find this _sustenance_?' The Texan hick drawled, lounging in one of the discarded aeroplane seats. He leapt in surprise as something thudded into the headrest, inches away from his dirty blond hair. A hunting knife.

'We hunt.' Said the previously calm, unassuming Locke. From where he was standing, just a few feet away from her, Faith could see the difference from when they had crashed. The calm was still in his face, but now his eyes blazed with a determination and purpose. A metal case by his feet showed a dozen more knives, each more deadly than the last. Faith was stunned.

'How did you get those on the plane?' Someone asked; everyone was staring at him with their jaw on the floor.

'Checked it.' He said calmly, retrieving his knife from the seat, and testing the edge before slipping it into the sheath at his belt. He went on to explain about the boar they had seen on the first night; they would easily feed the survivors until they could find more food.

A couple of people volunteered to go with him, a woman in her twenties with dark hair, and a black man who looked a little older. Before she could think, Faith found herself stepping forwards too.

'I'm coming too.' The words left her lips before she could stop them, and she glared fiercely at the other three volunteers, daring them to argue. Locke nodded, half smiling. He always seemed to look as if he knew something she didn't. The woman cast him an accusing glare, and the man glanced at her worriedly, but nobody seemed to want to question his decision. After all, he was the one with the box full of knives.

Locke picked up his chest of knives, leading them away from the crowd until they were standing a few feet away from the medical tent. Faith remembered the previous night, the screams of the dying man cut short by a single shot. He had been one of the first to die. Faith hoped he would be the last.

The female volunteer followed her gaze, seemingly also troubled by the memory of the shrapnel guy; she chewed nervously on a fingernail until Locke spoke.

'Here, Kate.' He passed her one of the knives. Kate slid the gleaming blade out of the sheaf, carefully testing the edge, before flipping it over in her hand so she could fasten it to her belt. She looked professional, almost comfortable holding the weapon, but when she caught Faith looking at her she shrugged guardedly and averted her gaze.

The black man seemed the opposite of Kate. Locke called him Michael, and handed him the knife as if wondering why he had volunteered. Michael looked like he was wondering that himself as he clumsily fixed the knife to his belt, looking out of place in his suit trousers and blue shirt, whereas Locke was wearing a khaki combat waistcoat and strong walking boots. He glanced down at Faith's bare feet and she squirmed, hurriedly rushing off to retrieve her trainers, meeting Stefan on the way.

'You want me to come too?' He asked jokingly, and she grinned as he waved his bandaged arm uselessly.

'Guard the fort while I'm gone.' She told him, and he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before she ran off after Locke, Michael and Kate.

A few minutes later and the four of them had melted into the jungle.


	3. Chapter 3

Three hours into the hike, and Faith was beginning to regret volunteering. Locke and Kate moved through the jungle with ease, and even Michael seemed more at home than her. Her clumsy, teenage feet seemed to catch on every tree root, branches scraped at her bare arms, and her tousled hair caught on branches of the surrounding trees. Faith cursed loudly as she slapped buzzing insects out of her vision with scratched, bloody hands.

'Quiet.' Locke suddenly hissed, surprising her, and Kate and Michael, who had been talking, glanced up at him. He stood motionless between the trees a few feet in front, one finger to his lips, those of the other hand wrapped around the handle of his knife. The other three automatically reached for their own weapons.

Locke studied the surrounding trees, pointing out what he had seen. 'See these scratches on the tree-trunk?' He indicated several long, deep gauges into the soft bark. 'A boar made these with its tusks. We're close.'

The four of them glanced round, and the jungle suddenly seemed foreboding, hiding any number of dangers, the boar the least of them. Locke slid his knife into his hand, and the others quickly followed suit. The hunting knife was heavy in Faith's hand, made for an adult, not a small fifteen-year-old girl. She gripped the hilt with both hands, breathing hard to slow her pounding heart. Michael looked as worried as she, Kate apprehensive but determined. Locke just looked eager and resolute.

A sudden crashing brought everything into focus, and the four hunters swung towards the cause of it. Trees were shoved sideways, grass snapped and bent, and something thundered into their midst. It cannoned into Locke, a huge tusk slicing into Michael's leg. Kate threw herself sideways, just getting out of the way in time. And the boar saw Faith.

It was huge, almost as tall as she was, with coarse brown fur and tiny black eyes. A massive tusk sprouted from either side of its snout, which snuffled at the ground as it lowered its head to charge.

Faith was engulfed by white-hot fear. Acting on instinct as usual, she did the first thing that came into her head. With a roar of anger, she charged first.

The boar, clearly taken by surprise, couldn't even blink as a small teenage girl with messy black hair threw herself towards it. Reacting to her impulsive charge the only way it knew how, the 150-pound beast turned and ran.

Faith tried to stop herself in time before she hit a tree. Digging her trainers into the floor, she tumbled headfirst into the ground, scrambling to her feet a few seconds later, pumping with adrenaline and delayed terror.

'Faith, are you insane?' Kate was staring at her open mouthed, half impressed, half scared. She was kneeling by Michael, binding the wound on his leg with a sleeve of his shirt

'Probably.' Faith leant against the nearest tree to catch her breath, and then saw Locke, sprawled motionless on the ground. Kate followed her gaze.

'Jon?' He seemed to stir at the sound of her voice, mumbling something too quiet for Faith to hear, but Kate did.

'Helen?'

'What?' Locke was coming to his senses, shaking his head as if to clear it.

'You called me Helen.' Michael winced in pain as Kate tied the makeshift bandage tight around his leg.

'Did I?' Locke was heaving himself to his feet, a strange look in his eyes.

'Jon, Michael's hurt.' Kate pointed out the bleeding gash, but the man didn't even look at her.

'Which way did the boar go?'

Kate automatically pointed in the direction it had run, then scrambled to find her feet as Locke set off in that direction. 'Jon, you can't - '

'Don't tell me what I can't do!' Locke yelled over his shoulder, vanishing into the dense jungle. Kate shook her head, pushing brown hair off her forehead.

'What now?' Faith asked, looking to Kate, as she was the more able of the two adults. She was thirsty, having forgotten to bring any water, but she knew Kate had drunk nearly all of hers.

'We have to get Michael to Jack.' Kate said, casting a final, worried glance after Locke, before helping Michael to his feet. 'Come on.' Faith hurried to support the man's other side, and he limped between them as they set off in what she hoped was the right direction. Michael's body blocked her view of the other woman, but Kate seemed to know what she was doing. She would just have to trust her.

An hour later they reached the foot of a tall tree, and Kate shrugged Michael's heavy arm off her shoulder. Faith did the same, and they eased him down onto the ground. He wasn't speaking, but he was obviously in a lot of pain. His dark forehead was shiny with sweat, and the sleeve-bandage wrapped around his leg didn't do much to soak up the blood dripping down his trouser leg.

'We'll rest here.' Kate began to examine the tree.

'I think the guy with the busted leg should decide when we take a break.' Michael said, breaking his silence, but Kate barely heard him. She took off her backpack, taking out what looked like a large, complicated walkie-talkie wrapped in a bundle of rope.

'What's that?'

'A transceiver. We found it in the front half of the plane.' Kate explained. Faith remembered seeing Kate, Jack and another younger man heading into the jungle on their second day on the Island, and hadn't realised where they had been going until now. 'Sayid fixed it. I'm gonna try and get a signal.'

She nodded at the top of the tree. Faith followed her gaze and felt dizzy just looking that high. She hated heights. 'Rather you than me.' She settled down beside Michael as Kate pulled herself onto the lowest branch and proceeded to scale the tree, making it look easy. After the first few metres Faith looked away, feeling sick.

'So what were you doing in Australia?' The black man asked her after a few minutes of awkward silence.

'I was there with my family.' Faith said carefully. 'You?'

'Ah…picking up my son. He was living with his mother.' Faith was too polite to pry, so she left it at that, glancing up to see how far Kate had climbed. She looked back down quickly when she saw how small she looked.

Then a sudden crash brought her quickly to her feet. At first she thought it was Kate, but it came again, louder and closer. Faith glanced around in panic, looking for the source of the noise, and saw in the distance a cloud of dust flying up from the ground, and trees shaking.

Faith took a few steps back to get away, and something smashed into the ground at her feet. The transceiver. Faith looked up again, Kate meeting her eyes. They both knew there was no chance of picking up a signal now.

The crashing noises came again, but they seemed to be moving further away now. Faith half wished she was in the tree instead of Kate, despite her fear of heights, but then she decided she didn't want to know what was making those noises.

Kate landed next to her a few minutes later, picking up the busted transceiver and shoving it angrily back into her backpack.

'Come on, let's get Michael to Jack.' They helped him up again, supporting him one on either side. Faith cast a look back where the noises had come from, hoping that wasn't where Locke was headed. 'Jon'll be fine.' Kate said, as if reading her mind, but she couldn't keep a trace of worry out of her voice.

'What happened?' Was the first thing Jack said when the reached the beach. He quickly took Michael's weight from them. 'Where's Jon?'

Faith didn't stick around to hear Kate tell him what had happened to Locke, instead seeking out Stefan. She found him sitting on the shore near their shelter.

'Hey.' She said, settling herself down beside him. He smiled.

'How did it go? Did you catch any pigs?'

'Boar. And no, but Locke's going after the one we found. I sort of…chased it away.'

Stefan smirked, shaking hair out of his eyes. 'Faith the boar chaser.' He joked, and she punched him lightly on the shoulder.

'How's the arm?' She nodded at his bad arm in its sling, and he shrugged.

'Not bad. Healing.'

The sun was setting. The two of them stared as the shadows lengthened over the sand. Stefan muttered something in German.

'What was that?'

'I thought they would have found us by now.' He translated, and she didn't answer, just stared out at the vast empty sea.


	4. Chapter 4

_Day six:_

Stefan woke up slowly, savouring the feeling of the sun bathing his face in warmth. Though their tent was shady later in the day, and remarkably stable, it let a few rays of sunlight in at the same time each morning and he always woke up feeling calm and contented.

He sat up, the blanket he had been sleeping under falling off him as he yawned and stretched. He glanced down at Faith, curled up asleep next to him, and then around at the others in the tent. All but his best friend (and she was, he had never had any other) wore identical expressions of worry, their faces showing varying degrees of sunburn. Remembering he was wearing his pyjama bottoms and nothing else, he reached behind to find the backpack he used as a pillow. Fishing around inside it, Stefan found a relatively clean pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt with his country's flag across the front.

He went behind the tent to change, threw his pyjamas back onto his makeshift bed, and grabbed his trainers from inside the entrance to the tent. Casting another glance at his friend, the German boy headed to the jungle for a walk.

As he pushed his way through the long grass between the trees, he concentrated on the warm, fuzzy feeling inside his chest, and not the fear that was gnawing away at him. He remembered the crash distinctly; at least, he remembered waking up, and running out of the forest to a sight of complete pandemonium. The rest he tried hard to forget…

_Stefan thanked the stewardess as she handed him a can of soda, trying to ignore his father's drunken snoring beside him. He had told his father they had to be at the airport early, even tried to drag him out of bed so they wouldn't miss the bus. But his dad was having none of it. Luckily, his son had enough hair to hide the bruise on his forehead, and enough sense not to fight back. Stefan knew plenty of English and was able to get around in Australia, and called a taxi instead of the bus, paying with his own sparse money supply and helping his half-asleep father through customs at the airport._

_He settled into the seat with relief, wedged an airsickness bag beside his father just in case, and settled down to sleep._

_He had woken up when the plane began to shake. He automatically translated the turbulence announcement, checking both of their seatbelts. His dad was grumbling in his stupor, but was too out of it to come round. Stefan shook him as the second wave of shuddering washed over the plane, to no avail. Stefan swallowed; even his father's temper would have been preferable to being alone in this condition. He had never cared for flying, but his father's line of work meant they often had to travel by air._

_He remembered the guitar case, wedged into the overhead locker, hoping it wouldn't be damaged by the turbulence. His father would likely vent his anger on Stefan; with no guitar, there would be no income, and with no income, he would have to stay sober until he could get his son to buy him another guitar._

_Stefan never wondered why he didn't save a stash of money for such an emergency, the answer was as obvious as it was pathetic; Dieter Volt, the famous folk musician, who travelled the world in a drunken daze, should never have to save any of his precious beer money. That was why, at every opportunity, the boy would take as much as possible, without his father noticing it was missing, and hide it in the locked box in his backpack. But he doubted there would be enough to pay for a new instrument, as well as the aeroplane and taxi fares. His moneybox was almost empty._

_When the second bout of turbulence didn't cease, and the gas masks dropped in front of him, Stefan felt his carefully squashed fear of flying rise to his throat. He grabbed the mask in front of his dad, forcing it over the motionless man's head, then reached for his own. He had just secured it when the back half of the plane snapped off, and as he tried to turn around to look down the aisle, the compartment over his seat flew open, and the blasted guitar case hit the side of his head. Stefan blacked out._

At this memory, he automatically felt at his waist, looking for the pouch he now kept fastened round his belt at all times. It contained everything he cared for in the world: the last dregs of his money, a necklace once belonging to his mother - and his knife. It was practically useless as a weapon or a tool, but he kept it with him out of habit, feeling safer to have it with him than be unarmed.

As he padded through the dense jungle, Stefan let his thoughts wander. He liked to be alone; he had spent the better half of his life that way, when his father was out of the house. He liked that he was able to think in German, when there was nobody around he had to try and talk to. But then a sound interrupted his thoughts, causing him to stop and look around. He was in the middle of a large patch of grass, which was an almost unnatural shade of green, and too tall to see over. He stared through the blades, searching for the source of the noise, but when it came again, it was from behind him.

Stefan felt fear grip his throat and crawl into his mouth. He swallowed with a click, and he spun to face the direction he had come, but the grass was unmoving.

The sound came again, it was a rustling of leaves, and an odd creaking, and a thudding noise that Stefan realised was the pounding of his heart. His logical mind told him it was nothing - a tree groaning in the breeze or an animal moving through the jungle, which he would have believed if not for the terror that was squeezing his insides, and the terrible knowledge that it was something much, much worse. He followed an instinct that ran deeper and stronger than his blood; he turned and ran.

It occurred to him as he sprinted through the trees that he was heading the wrong way, that he should be going towards the beach, not into the deeper jungle, but his legs wouldn't obey him. He ran until his lungs cried out for air, and sweat ran into his burning eyes, and his legs felt as if they would seize up from the pain and cramp. Then he fell, his legs giving way, and tumbled headfirst into the ground, his fall cushioned somewhat by the thick layer of leaves on the ground.

An instant later he was scrambling to his feet, alert for any signs of danger. The jungle surrounding him was silent and still. His fear slowly ebbed away, to be replaced with embarrassment. Not only had he overreacted to perfectly normal jungle noises, he was now totally lost. Stefan did the only thing he could think of. He swore loudly in German, and began to look for a tree with enough branches to climb and get his bearings.

He pulled himself onto his selected tree, hoping it would support his weight, and then swarmed up the rest of the tree, ignoring the small twigs that scraped at his arms and snagged his loose T-shirt. He was slender and nimble, and reached the top of the tree with little difficulty. Once there, he stood up on the highest branch he thought would support him, holding onto the trunk for stability as he scanned the surrounding jungle. Spotting a flash of blue ocean to his right, he guessed that was the direction of their beach.

Stefan knew he should be heading back so Faith wouldn't worry, but something kept him frozen there, high above the island. This was the tallest tree for miles around, and he could see everything on the Island. Back home (whatever that was) he had loved to climb onto the roof of whatever building they were staying in. He would usually stay for hours when his father was out, staring into the distance until well into the night. Sometimes he fell asleep up there, and woke up the next morning with a stiff neck and a cold, and went inside to find his father sprawled across the doorstep, key in hand, stinking of booze.

A feeling similar to what kept him on the roof held him in place in the treetops; a feeling of contentment, and freedom, and…_happiness_. He couldn't ever remember being happy until after the crash, and that revelation made his head spin. The tree suddenly swayed in the wind, so queasily he had to clutch the trunk for support. He waited for his head and stomach to settle, then reluctantly climbed down hand over hand. He was almost on the ground when he heard the cries for help.

'Is someone there? Help me! Oh God…' The voice was in English, and with an accent he recognised but couldn't place.

'Hello? Who's that?'

'I'm over here…please, help me.' The voice was high and light, no older than a child's and pitifully weak. Stefan gazed around, searching for the source of the voice, but saw nothing.

'Where are you? Keep talking!' The child continued to call for help, and Stefan pelted in what he hoped was the right direction. Then the voice stopped and so did its follower. 'Where now?' He said helplessly.

'I'm right above you.' Stefan craned his neck and thought he saw a flash of blue, high among the green leaves.

'Okay. I'll come get you down.' He replied, casting about for some way to reach the child. None of the branches on the tree were low enough for him to grab hold of; how had the kid got there in the first place? 'I'll get help!' He promised, and began to head off through the trees. He would fetch Jack, he always seemed to know what to do. But the little voice came again.

'Don't leave me. Please.'

'All right.' Stefan answered. There probably wasn't enough time to get to the beach and back anyway, and he didn't want to risk it. Then, looking at the other trees around him, an idea struck. 'Wait. Don't move!' He called, winced at the stupidity of the command, and scrambled into the branches of the tree next to the child's.

It took a few minutes to reach the same level as the stuck kid, and then Stefan twisted round on the branch to see where to go next. The boy stared at him with wide brown eyes from beneath a shock of bright orange hair. He was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, and was shivering, partly from fear and partly from the cold of being in the shade for so long. He was sitting in a blue seat from the plane, and it was wedged firmly between the branches. Another pinned him across the chest, making escape impossible. The skin of the boy's face was sunken and pale, as if he hadn't had anything to eat or drink for days – which he probably hadn't, thought Stefan.

'Listen, I'll get you down.' Stefan promised, still in English. 'What's your name?'

'Zack…'

'Zack, don't worry. I'm going to climb onto that branch,' he pointed at a thick limb of Zack's tree a few feet down, almost directly beneath him, 'and then I'm going to help you down. Okay?'

The boy nodded, and Stefan began to wriggle his way along the branch on his front, rough bark scraping the skin through his T-shirt. After another couple of minutes he was at the thinnest part he dared, almost directly over the other tree's branch. It wasn't too hard to let himself down slowly, putting all his weight on his arms and dangling so that the toes of his boots brushed the branch. Then, praying it would hold, hoping he didn't slip and fall to his almost certain death, Stefan closed his eyes and let go. He landed safely on the branch, heart thudding in his ears, and opened his eyes to find Zack staring in fear from a few feet away.

'See? Easy.' Stefan tried to reassure him, but the look of absolute terror didn't leave Zack's face He sighed. 'All right then, let's get you down.'


	5. Chapter 5

It was four hours after Faith woke up that Stefan stumbled into camp, with what looked a doll clutched in his arms. Faith was helping other kids carry wood for that night's fire on the other end of the beach, and didn't recognise him from that distance until one of the other girls suddenly dropped her wood and pointed at the other end of the beach. Before the others could begin to put down their own wood, Faith had let hers tumble from her arms as she set off towards her friend at a sprint, her sneakers violently kicking up sand behind her.

By the time she reached him there was a crowd gathered, but Faith quickly weaved through it and reached the front. Stefan was kneeling on the ground, gently laying the bundle in his arms on a few aeroplane seat cushions that someone had arranged into a makeshift bed. As she ducked under the last of the arms blocking her way, Faith saw that it wasn't a doll at all but a small boy with extremely pale skin and fiercely red hair. Faith wanted to rush forward but hung back nervously; the child was so thin she was afraid his arms would snap if she touched him, and Stefan handled the boy with such care that she could tell he thought it too.

"Where's the doctor?" Someone asked, but nobody seemed to have an answer, and Faith couldn't remember seeing him since that morning. Kate said he'd been acting strangely just before Locke reappeared with a freshly caught boar the night before.

"Who is he? Where did he come from?" She asked, edging carefully round him and the boy to stand beside Stefan. To her surprise, her friend shrugged.

"I'm not sure. I found him in the jungle, trapped in a tree. His name's Zack."

"In a _tree?_ Has he been there since the crash? How did he survive?"

"I don't know." Stefan took the proffered bottle of water from a fellow castaway and carefully held it to Zack's mouth. Most of it splashed over his chin and onto his ragged T-shirt, but his eyelids fluttered and he painfully swallowed the few drops that made it down his throat. Kate had appeared from somewhere, and was trying to urge the crowd to leave. Slowly the rest of the castaways dissipated until only Faith, Stefan, Kate and the boy were left.

"Have you seen Jack?" Faith asked the older woman, but she shook her head, worrying her lip with her teeth.

"Not since this morning. Who's the kid?"

"Stefan found him in the jungle."

Kate's reaction was similar to hers. She gaped at Faith. "In the _jungle?_" She stared down at the two boys' heads, one a sandy brown, the other vivid orange. Zack appeared to be regaining consciousness; he was able to raise his head to gulp down the water Stefan was holding.

"Careful. We've not got much water left." Kate warned him, but she needn't have bothered. Zack was already spluttering and pushing Stefan's hands away.

"I'm okay." He insisted, but it came out in a croak.

"You're not. Have you eaten anything since the crash?" Stefan asked as he screwed the cap back onto the bottle.

"Some berries and stuff I found in the tree. I drank rainwater. Oh, there was a nest with bird's eggs. They tasted disgusting." His nose crinkled, and Faith's did the same. She couldn't stand eggs, let alone raw ones. Now the Zack's voice was getting stronger she heard he had a strong Scottish accent. She couldn't help commenting.

"Aye, I was brought up in Scotland. I'm Australian originally though – they said so, anyway."

"They?" Faith was curious. Stefan shot her a warning look, but she always was too nosy for her own good.

"My foster parents. I stayed with them in Australia since I was five, but I was in the children's home in Scotland before that. They told me my parents were Australian." He stopped talking and looked at Stefan. "You don't need to hover over me like that. I'm fine."

Stefan stood up, obviously hurt but trying to hide it. Faith grinned and punched his good arm lightly, and he scowled at her. The boy tried to get to his feet, swaying slightly. Stefan quickly moved forward and Zack gratefully grabbed his arm and hauled himself up. He was stronger than he looked; Stefan almost fell over. Faith coughed loudly to hide her snigger.

"Anyway, I wasn't in the tree long before he found me. I must've been asleep for a few days."

"Asleep? You mean unconscious?" Faith asked. He nodded at her, red hair flopping into his eyes.

"Aye. I remember I was on the plane, then something hit my head. I must've fallen into the tree. I woke up three or four days ago and shouted, but nobody heard me. I was too far away I suppose."

Faith was stunned by the calm way he was talking; he looked no older than eight or nine, in his position she would have been screaming. "How old are you anyway?" She wondered.

"Ten." He announced, then paused. "Well, nearly. In a year. And a bit." Faith tried to sort this out in her head.

"So…you're eight."

"Aye!" He nodded. "You're smart. What's your name?"

"Faith…"

"Cool." Faith was baffled. She was almost relieved when Walt, Michael's son, came tearing across the beach towards Kate, yelling something. She didn't hear what, but Kate must have had much better hearing than her, because she was gone in an instant in the direction Walt had come from. She stared after her in confusion.

Zack was kicking up clouds of sand when she turned back around, hands shoved in his pockets, gazing around at the camp in apparent fascination. Stefan was watching him worriedly.

"Hey, I know. We'll show you where we sleep!" Faith suggested. "And find you some more clothes." She added after a moment's thought. Zack glanced down at his tattered T-shirt and shorts and bare feet for a few seconds, then his thoughts seemed to come to a conclusion. He looked up.

"Okay!" He agreed, grabbed Stefan's arm and Faith's hand, and set off.


End file.
